Web conferencing is used to conduct live meetings or presentations via the Internet. In such a web conference, multiple participant computers are connected to each other via the Internet. Each participant computer may have one or more conferencing individuals associated therewith. One, some or all of the participant computers may be capable of consuming conferencing information. One some or all of the participant computers may be capable of providing conference information. Furthermore, one, some or all of the participant computers may be capable of both consuming and providing conferencing information. A conferencing service gathers the conference information provided by the participant computers, and redistributes the conference information to the participant computers as appropriate.
Conferencing information might include, for example, video and audio information. However, conferencing information might also include other types of data. For instance, slide decks, images, white board data, simulations, and other types of data may also be communicated as part of the conference. As the web conference is conducted, participant computers thus upload conferencing information to a conferencing clearing house, which then redistributes the conferencing information to other participant computers as appropriate. Sometimes, it is necessary to flow conferencing information security.
Current conference/event solutions needing to connect and flow conferencing information securely between participant computers do so via unicasting. In other words, there is a dedicated connection for flowing conferencing information from the conference service to each participant computer that consumes conference information. Unicasting is advantageous in some respects as it allows the conference service to deal uniquely with the varied bandwidth and reliability of each participant computer.